I have a mixed history with Christmas. I need my alone time and the holidays are filled with people and activities and socializing and more people and travel. Thankfully, this year the travel was done pre-Christmas so I didn’t have to go anywhere more than a few miles to my sister-in-law for the morning to view the ceremonial small child unwrapping presents.
Which we did and had am excellent breakfast there as we played Headbanz. It worked pretty well and showed how hard some of us guessed at very easy items. The premise of the game is you put a card on your head which you can’t see and ask yes/no questions to figure out what it is.
I learned that I overthink the answers and need to keep it to simple things. Example cards were Giraffe, Train and Sandwich.
I struggled mightily with butterfly after determining it had wings and flew, but was not a bird or a bat, or Fly (another card we’d seen earlier).
The main event is of course, the Christmas Dinner. This year we hosted and my wife worked up the menu including a broccoli salad (very fresh and not filled with mayo), roasted potatoes (because the Big Potato mandates their inclusion at every holiday meal) spinach dip with fresh veggies in a sourdough loaf bowl (because you need fuel to prepare the rest of the meal).
The main course would be a double-header of grilled salmon and grilled turkey legs.Grilled SalmonGrilled Turkey Legs
It was my second time grilling turkey legs and my first time grilling salmon. I largely winged the salmon and focused on not over-cooking it. My key to any properly cooked meat is to remove it from the grill about 10 degrees before it hits the recommended temperature. It’s still going to cook inside and instead of dry, tough meat, you have a juicy, moist meal to enjoy.
We set the table. Complete with plants and a small child.
Christmas dinner set at the table with my nephew present.
Christmas was a success. We sat in front of the fire and played some more Headbanz and visited as adults who have eaten too many delicious foods do on holidays.
We went to see the Zoo Lights tonight before the shutdown affects the Zoo’s functioning. In all the years I’ve lived near DC I never remember going before.
It was fun to walk through a familiar place at night. I enjoy the zoo because I see something new every time I go.
The animal houses were closed tonight. And even if they weren’t, the animals are sleeping.
Though I was hoping to see the kiwi bird they claim to have there. I’ve looked a dozen times and never seen the small sneaky bird.
One thing that struck me from my youth was the various statues of animals there. Specifically the bear cubs and the anteater. I remember climbing on those statues when I was a kid.
I don’t have many firm memories from the zoo, but I do vividly remember those statues.
Last month I received an email from work I didn’t expect.
Hello,
An employee spotlight article in an upcoming edition of the FACT will spotlight you, and your career at the FDA. Please answer the following questions and include a picture of yourself to accompany the article. Since many of us work at home, or in separate locations it is always nice to get to know a little about our fellow coworkers.
It asked a few questions about my for an upcoming employee spotlight for our newsletter. I responded with far more than they needed but I never know how much to write or what they’ll pick out to use.
Please describe what you do in your current role to support the FDA.
My current role at the FDA is a Rich Media Engineer. In short, that means I help support the WebEx, Video Teleconference, Streaming TV, and Cable TV at the FDA for the agency of 25,000 and anyone externally they interact with nationally and internationally.
What are the biggest challenges you face in your role?
The biggest challenge I face in my role is information sharing and institutional knowledge. At FDA, information lives mostly in email and in various SharePoint silos where it quickly gets out of date and forgotten. When I worked at NIH when we had an enterprise wiki where all our knowledge lived. When something was out of date, it could be updated instantly, by anyone so we had a living set of accurate documents.
What do you enjoy most about your position?
I most enjoy the challenge of supporting a diverse set of collaboration and information tools. I like to educate customers about the technological options available to them and work with them to assure successful events.
What is your career history? Where have you worked before joining the FDA account; what did you do there?
I came from the quick printing industry where my father owned and operated a chain of stores called Copy General (based in Sterling, VA). I spent about a decade working in Desktop Support at NIH, The Atlantic Magazine, Honeywell, and the City of Richmond, VA. For the past 5 years I’ve worked in collaboration support, first at the Department of Labor, and currently at FDA.
Personal interests – What are your hobbies? Have you been on a recent vacation?
I enjoy walking around the local parks, my favorite being Lake Needwood. In my off-time, I like to tinker with technology toys, read (current favorites are John Scalzi and Jonathan Maberry) and play video games (current addition: Destiny 2).
What do you see from your office? Do you have a favorite place to visit in your area? Please include a picture with a description of what you are seeing “out your window” to accompany the article.
My office doesn’t have a window so a brick wall wouldn’t be interesting, so here’s a picture from my window when I work remote.
Education/Certifications?
I graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in Creative Advertising.
Where do you reside?
Rockville, MD
Family?
My wife is an Art Therapist running her practice in the DC area. My brother founded and runs Read The Docs, an open-source platform for documentation.
This is what they ended up using in the newsletter that went out to everyone.
Employee Spotlight: Carl Holscher
View from the hall window where I work at FDA (since I sit in a windowless room.)
Carl’s current role at the FDA is Rich Media Engineer. He helps support WebEx, Video Teleconferencing, Streaming TV, and Cable TV at the FDA; this includes providing support to anyone the FDA interacts with nationally and internationally. The biggest challenge he faces in his role is the process of information sharing and institutional knowledge. Carl states, “At the FDA, information lives mostly in email and in various SharePoint silos where it quickly gets out of date and forgotten”. The most enjoyable aspect of his role is the challenge of supporting a diverse set of collaborative and informative tools. Carl likes educating customers about the technological options available to them and works with them to assure successful events.
Carl came from the quick printing industry where his father owned and operated a chain of stores called Copy General (based in Sterling, VA). He spent about a decade working in Desktop Support at NIH, The Atlantic Magazine, Honeywell, and the City of Richmond, VA. For the past 5 years, he has worked in collaboration support, first at the Department of Labor, and currently at the FDA. Carl graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in Creative Advertising.
When he is not in the office, Carl enjoys walking around local parks, his favorite being Lake Needwood. He also likes to tinker with technology toys, reading (his current favorite authors are John Scalzi and Jonathan Maberry) and playing video games (currently: Destiny 2). Carl resides in Rockville, MD.
The picture above is from his window when he works remotely. (This is where I forgot to update the text before I sent it. The picture is from FDA’s White Oak Campus, which I cannot see from my house.)
It was really nice to be selected (either at random or using some criteria I’ll never know. It’s nice to be recognized, even to have a little interview about yourself for your co-workers to get to know you better.
Sprint is offering free service for a year. That’s a $1,200 savings over our current T-MOBILE plan. I don’t have any reason to leave them but free is better than not.
There’s no contract or limitations. So if service is bad, we leave Sprint and switch back. But if it’s OK, then we have free phone service until next December and an extra $100 in our pockets every month.
I play a game to see how quickly I can scan, bag and pay for my items when I am checking myself out.
When I pay at a cashier, I play the game of trying to keep up with the cashier. I try to get items into the bags as fast as they can scan them and send them along.
There are some places which are terribly designed for a single person to scan and bag. Other places where there is no room for bagging whether you’re scanning or not.
Aldi has the right idea where they don’t bag at all and stick your items back into a different shopping cart. They have a long shelf area along the front of the store where customers can bag their items if they wish. It gets people through the lines quickly and the bottleneck becomes at the bagging area. But if you’re run in for a few items, it gets you in and out quicker than any other store.
Grilled Salmon
Grilled Turkey Legs
